She pushed back from him for the first time and stumbled against the chair. His hand shot out to right her, but she shoved that away too. Her own shame overwhelmed her.
“Tell me you’re putting this whole mess to rest with Gunner now.”
Please
.
“Rye hasn’t decided yet. All of us want Gunner to suffer a little more, and there’s nothing that makes a man suffer like a woman.”
Well, that was jaded, but then, so was he.
“I don’t see any good coming from it.”
“You sound like Tory. Now, let’s shift gears a bit. At Rye’s request, I talked to your boss about giving you a few days off. For family reasons.”
Her spine shot up straight like she was a marionette and someone had pulled her string. “Dammit, you had no right to do that. I don’t want to take any time off. Why can’t you men stop interfering?”
His mouth quirked up at her outrage. “We
men
like to interfere. Besides, you work too much.”
“I’m going to be a lawyer. It’s what lawyers do. Now, you should get back to the tour. I expect you have a flight to catch.”
His eyes narrowed. “It leaves when I tell it to.” He grabbed her chin between his fingers and studied her. “You’re not acting at all like I’d expected.”
Her heart pounded in her chest so loud she feared he could hear it. “How in the hell did you expect me to react? Oh, just get out, why don’t you? You hate being around me anyway.”
His hand stroked her cheek then, and she stilled. “I don’t hate being around you, honey. I wish I did.”
Her mouth parted, sensing the shift between them.
“Well, I should go,” he said after a moment of silence sat between them. “Call if you need anything, even if it’s a shoulder to cry on. I did pretty well with that before.”
“You hated it,” she spat back, wanting to weep.
“I loved having you in my arms, even if the reason wasn’t what I would have chosen.”
That was too much for her, and she threw her hands up. “Why are you saying all this now? Why aren’t you sniping at me like usual?”
“Because you’re sniping at me, sugar, and we need some balance, or we’ll both be destroyed.” He walked to the door.
“Clayton,” she made herself say. “Thank you for coming. It was…good to see a friendly face this morning.”
That was the only truth she could admit to him.
He turned and flashed her a devastating smile. “Don’t work too hard, sugar. You aren’t a lawyer yet.”
When he left, he shut the door behind him, almost like he knew she’d need a moment to compose herself. She pressed her hands to her temples and tried to swallow what seemed like a giant rubber ball in her throat.
Clayton had called what she’d done unforgivable.
Right then, she vowed to do penance for it for the rest of her life even as she prayed this whole terrible mess was behind them.
Chapter 37
As Tammy prepared to leave for Meade a few days later, she was pale and tense, but her spine was straight. John Parker recalled what his mama always said about strong women.
That girl has grit. She’ll be fine.
Trusting in that made it easier for him to pull her outside behind the house to kiss her goodbye before she said the same to Rory and Annabelle, who were watching cartoons inside.
“Call me when you get there,” he said, realizing he sounded like his mama.
“It’s a short flight to Jackson, and the drive won’t take long. I’ll be back tonight. Stop worrying,” she told him, and he heard a new strength in her voice, one that had been building for some time.
“I love this new you,” he finally said, rubbing her cheek with his thumb.
“I do too,” she said and kissed him smack on the lips again. “Now, I’d better go. If you need anything with the kids—”
“We’ll be fine. I have lots of plans for us.”
Rory and Annabelle had begged to go see their granddaddy. Tammy had said she wasn’t seeing him for very long, and that she had business to attend to. They hadn’t known what to make of that, but thankfully they’d stopped asking questions.
When she said goodbye to them, they clung a little, but that had nothing to do with any residual fear over her venturing out where the bad man could find her. Rory and Annabelle hadn’t mentioned him since the planting of the chocolate garden. It was almost like the chocolate they ate every morning erased it from their minds. He prayed they’d barely give the intruder a thought if and when the police finally caught him.
As she left in her SUV for the airport, John Parker told the kids to change into their swim suits. A large plastic swimming pool was stored in the new mill, just waiting for them to fill it up. He figured they would enjoy it even more than the sprinkler he usually turned on for them.
Annabelle ran off to her room, Barbie and Bandit trailing behind her. The other three dogs didn’t budge from their sprawl near the couch.
Rory just stood there, his brow knit. “I saw you kissing my mama,” the little boy told him.
John Parker ran his tongue over his teeth. So, they’d finally gotten caught. He and Tammy were careful not to touch around the children, but he hadn’t considered it necessary to take her to the tree house simply to say goodbye. He’d hoped Tammy would tell the kids about them, but she hadn’t yet. While that frustrated him, he’d respected her decision. Still, the cat was out of the bag now, so he dropped to a knee, deciding the simple truth was his best option.
“Yes, I was. That’s what people do when they love each other.”
Rory studied his blue canvas sneakers like he was having a conversation with them. “Are you going to marry my mama?” he whispered.
He didn’t even consider being vague in his answer. “I hope to, son, but I haven’t asked her yet, so you need to keep that between us. It’s a big decision.”
“It took Uncle Rye a long time to ask Aunt Tory.” He rolled his eyes. “It took him
forever
.”
Yeah, he was hoping it wouldn’t take equally long for them to become the family he wanted them to be.
“Well, let’s pray I can be quicker about it.” Of course, that depended on Tammy too.
Rory ducked his head again. “I pray for you to become my daddy every night. Annabelle does too. We say our prayers together after you and Mama say goodnight to us.”
A good strong wind could have blown him over. It took him a moment before he could speak. “That’s about the nicest thing I’ve ever heard, Rory.” This time he brought the boy to his chest, and those little arms wrapped around him.
“When you marry Mama, are you going to marry us too? I mean…Aunt Tory told Uncle Rye that when you marry someone, you marry their whole family.”
Looking into the serious eyes of the little boy who’d helped him put chocolates in Kleenexes in strategic locations around the house to promote his little sister’s belief in the protective watch of the chocolate fairies, John Parker’s heart filled with love. “Yes, son, we’ll be a family. Your mama, you, Annabelle, and me. Is that all right?”
Rory’s eyes burned with tears, and John Parker knew what was coming next. “My real daddy hates Annabelle and me, and I don’t want to have his name anymore. He hurt mama sometimes. She tried to hide it, but I knew. I’m glad Mama took us away from there.”
So the boy had known. God, it broke his heart clean in two to hear it.
“Did he ever hurt you?” he made himself ask. He had to know.
“He’d spank me sometimes, but not too often. But he never spanked Annabelle. I always told her to run away when he was coming, all mad-like.”
He wondered about the spanking. Had it really been a beating?
“Did the spanking hurt a lot?”
“Not too bad,” Rory said, “kind of like falling down on the sidewalk. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.”
Sweet Jesus. He hugged the boy to him “No one is ever going to hurt you again.”
“I know that. You and Mama will look after Annabelle and me.”
John Parker leaned back. “Some people are just bad,” he said simply, “and there’s no explaining it. Your mama was brave, coming here.”
“I know that. She’s the best mama ever. So, you’ll be my daddy when you marry Mama?”
Ruffling the boy’s hair, just as blond as Tammy’s, he smiled. “Of course, I’ll be your daddy, and if your mama wants it, ya’ll can take my name too.”
“I thought maybe Mama was going back to Meade to tell Daddy he couldn’t be our daddy anymore.”
The little boy was always trying to solve problems with his own brand of logic. “No, son. She had some other business.”
“Good,” he replied, curling his little fist. “I don’t want her to ever see him again.”
“Me either, son.”
“Annabelle and I tell God how happy we are that we’re living at your house and that you take us on bike rides and run through the sprinklers with us.”
“I’m awful lucky to have y’all in my life too. I’ll take good care of y’all, son. I promise.”
“I’ve been praying for a new daddy ever since Aunt Tory came back to Uncle Rye. God answered my prayer with her, and I just knew he’d bring me a new daddy next.”
He rubbed his eyes then, and John Parker felt the burn of tears in his own. My God, he would be blessed to call this boy his son.
“Rory, I couldn’t hope for a better son than you.” He eased back, swallowing back tears of his own as he watched them tumble from the boy’s blue eyes.
“You make Mama laugh. She never really laughed before.”
They’d had so little happiness in their old life. He planned to give them plenty of things to laugh and smile about for the rest of their lives. “Well, I’m glad you think so. Now how about we see if I can make you laugh?
Rory grinned immediately, and hearing the playful tone in John Parker’s voice, darted back a few steps. “How?”
John Parker started to stalk him. “I’m going to tickle you senseless, son. Better run for it.”
Rory dashed off. John Parker kept his pace slow as the boy’s small arms and legs brought him down the hall to his bedroom. When he looked over his shoulder to see how close John Parker was, he let out a whoop.
“You’re never going to catch me.”
John Parker increased his pace then, thinking,
no son, you’ve already caught me
.
Chapter 38
When Tammy parked in the driveway of Hollinswood and exited her rental car, she took a moment to absorb the sight of the meandering gardens and the brick plantation-style home. Before, Hollinswood had always looked majestic, like a home from another time. Now it just seemed sad. How could one person enjoy living here all by herself?
As she climbed the stairs to the front door and rang the bell, she schooled her features. She knew her mama would be home since Margaret Hollins’ schedule had been set in stone since before Tammy’s birth. This morning she’d had an early tennis game, and soon she would be leaving for her brunch with the Ladies of the Confederacy. She knew her mama would open the door, thinking it was a package or…worse, a vagrant trying to sell something.
When the massive door swung open, her mama’s only sign she was surprised to see her estranged daughter was that her eyebrows rose a fraction. “
Tammy.
”
“
Mama,
” she answered. “May I come in?”
Driven by her finishing school manners, her mama stepped back and allowed her to cross a threshold she would have sworn she’d never pass again. The house’s walls had been painted a new shade of gray, she noticed, almost like Mama was hanging mourning robes on them. She’d always redecorated at least once a year, and if her current choices were any indication, Mama had stamped out any final life from the house. Even the antique Georgian grandfather clock in the entryway no longer ticked, and Tammy wondered if Mama had finally stopped it since she’d always complained the bonging gave her a headache.
“Would you like some sweet tea?” her mama asked with all the politeness of Reverend Howard when Pamela Sue Urka had asked to sit next to him at the church picnic. Everyone had known Pamela was an adulteress. Still, Meade society didn’t so much kick out people of “questionable” class as it did ignore them until they simply stopped coming.
“No,” she said, “I’m not here for pleasantries.”
Now her mama crossed her arms over her powder blue linen suit. “Of course not. You made that clear when I called you to ask how y’all were faring after that horrible break-in. So, why
are
you here, Tammy Lynn?”
“I know you were the leak, Mama,” she simply stated, keeping her voice steady while her heart banged against her ribs.
“You must have gone plumb crazy, honey, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mama’s eyes didn’t flicker, but then again, she was a master at hiding her emotions.
“Rye hired someone to become close to Gunner Nolan, the tabloid reporter who broke the story about Rye paying Sterling one million dollars for our divorce.”
“You think
I
leaked that tawdry item to some ratty tabloid? If your brother told you that, he is a liar of the lowest sort,” she spat out. “I would never share our family business with anyone, least of all the press.”
“Rye never lies, Mama. He’s always brutally honest. You, me, Daddy, and Amelia Ann were always the ones who lied. Lied about how we felt, who we were, and what we wanted.”
“Now you’re calling me a liar? To my face?” her mama snapped.
“Mama, Gunner said one of Rye’s close female kin called him with the story,” she continued, refusing to show Mama any weakness by putting a hand to her quaking stomach.
“Well, he’s either lying or your brother is, Tammy. I would never do that. Never. As it is, people talk behind my back about your divorce and how you’re living with your wild brother, exposing your children to God knows what in the
country music
business.”
She made Rye’s profession sound like a profanity.
“Who else could it be, Mama?” Tammy said, her voice rising from the messy emotions roiling inside her.
“Who would have told them about something so scandalous? All of our relatives found out in the newspapers just like everyone else. And as for you thinking I would so such a hideous thing, well, it’s the last straw. I would never betray this family in such a fashion.”